Truly Blessed.....

I just finished taking photos for DHS. I just want to say, as I have said before how blessed I know I am. But not only that....those of you that are hard on yourself as moms (as I am all the time).....look at your children, and if you see bright smiles on their faces....know that you are a good mom, and how much your kids love you. I met 2 beautiful, so very sad children today. One was 5...and the difference between him, and my children...is not even comparable. He was so, so sad. Him and his sister were just seperated to 2 different foster homes...yesterday. And you could see the sadness so much in their eyes. I know you don't know them, and I can't even tell you their names, or show your their photos, but please say a prayer for them, along with the other kids I photographed today, that they find parents....SOON! And I also met some AWESOME foster moms today too, and just say a prayer of thanks and praise for these AWESOME people!!! Where would these kids be without them!??!

Noah

I found Noah just hanging out playing army men in the bathtub the other day.

couple more in their dresses.....

These were just done with my little camera, but again, I like it when my kids act like they love each other!

mommy moments

Nothing special about this pic except I happen to catch them all in the chair getting along....so you know, that is always special to momma moment! And yes, it was 30 degrees, and they are all wearing summer clothes/swimsuit!

Fun with dresses....

I got these dresses for them when my sister was getting married, and didn't get to take them back, and it looks like they won't sell on e-bay, so I decided I may as well pull them out and have some fun with them before they got too small for the girls. This is what prompted us to come take pics at the studio the other day. The girls were running around twirling in them at the house, so we decided to just come up here and have some fun.

I did it!

I got the scarfs finished for the other 2 kids finished this morning, just in time for the cold...now we actually need something on the ground so we can go out and play! I was going to take a pic, but that will have to follow later, the girls were taking a bath when I left to run up here.

Hope everyone stays warm today!! Today I am so thankful to have my warm home. I can't even imagine what the homeless are going through right now....and there are a lot of them in Little Rock.

our school pics

Noah has been asking me to take some pics up at the studio, so yesterday we decided to go. I was playing around with these last night....I think this will be our school pics for this year.

Once again, I have a ton of posts under this one. Here is my weeks worth of blog posts!

My other choice...

This was my other choice, and was going to put it on here with the green background. I may switch out sometime when I get bored to my new one. We played briefly yesterday in the COLD!!

The horse races

Saturday Clay and I went to the horse races. We have only been one other time, and that was just to walk around briefly. Clay's cousin/best friend Rick invited us, and I hadn't planned on going, but decided at the last minute to go, so the kids were super excited to get a trip down to see grandparents! It was so fun for us to have a day together...b/c last time I was sick the whole time! We have been married for over 8 yrs, and I can only think of one other time we have done something with another couple. But, we had a lot of FUN!! And, goofy me didn't even take a pic of them...can you believe that?

Jamie

My cousin Jamie lives in Little Rock, and it has been such a comfort to know that I still have family close to us! She moved here about the time we did. Noah was so excited that she came to watch his basketball game Friday night. The kids just love her! I know that she is one of my faithful quiet blog readers.....so I wanted to share.

My first finished scarf

As I have said before, I sure have been productive without t.v. and internet lately!! It has been really lonely at times. For instance, last night I was working on a new blog header and had to ask CLAY what he thought about it......and you can imagine how excited he was about that. I said, "please, just flatter me and tell me which one you like better, b/c you are my only friend I can ask right now!" And he jokingly said, "well, o.k.....but you know that I don't share your photograhy hobby with you!" Anyway, he was kind and gave me input....but then didn't seem to want to answer my questions of WHY do you like this one better, and what do you not like about this other one.....MEN! ha ha

Anyway, I have been teaching myself how to knit, and have come acoss some awesome yarn at Michael's that is only $1 a skein, so it truly is cheaper to make one than to buy one. This one, I ended up crocheting. Some yarn I can knit, and others it is easier for me to crochet. I made this one, and Rachel claimed it, so now the other 2 have been asking constantly when I would finish theirs. And then today, they announced that I had better hurry up TODAY and make it b/c the bad weather was coming tomorrow!

Our Hula Skirts

This post is for my dad b/c he told me yesterday after getting this stuff that he expected to see this on my blog soon....so here it is! My sister flew in from Hawaii yesterday, and came by the house with lots of goodies!! I am so jealous, and hope SOMEDAY I get to go to Hawaii too!

I love the blue and brown beaded necklace....my favorite colors!! And she brought me a root to grow my own plumeria flower...COOL!

The grass skirts are so cute!! It came with coconut tops too, but we were having trouble with those, so we decided to just wear these with our swim suits. LOVE them!

I'm still here....

Yes, we are all still here and doing well, I just haven't had time to blog. I have pics picked out and ready, but the girls are up here with me and are ready to leave! I will try to get to it soon!

This is me and my 3 big babies all sitting in the recliner, we were loaded down!

Catching up today....

I have tried to catch up on my blogging. I had some great pics of the kids scrapbooking and making cookies....I mean I was going to do a whole post on the cooking making, I had a pic of someone doing each step.....and my camera messed up and lost all of my pictures!

Anyway, K.T. asked me about having patience with my kids scrapbooking. The answer to that is....I can only be patient if I am not trying to scrapbook at the same time! I tried us all working together, and I was a nervous wreck, and the kids harassed me nonstop. Finally Clay said, "good grief...what are you getting so worked up about?? Why don't you just give them their own supplies?" So I sorted through all of my stuff and divided out what I didn't mind them using, and then I went and sat in my chair and knitted....and that helped tremendously! I found a bunch of old pics that I didn't mind them doing whatever to, and they went after it. Noah is a scrapbooking champ! He did so many pages on Sunday, he filled his book, I added more, and he just about filled those too. And, he was doing so good with his, I actually let him scrapbook some of our good pics too, and he was a help in getting that done. They LOVE doing it!

Sunday afternoon, his friend knocked on there door to play, and later on he came in and got his book to show him, and I heard him say, " do you ever scrapbook??" Clay just shook his head. Yes, I know, I seem to be creating a miniature version of my geeky self!

Check out my new posts below.

Snow Ball fight at the library

Sometimes on Tuesdays we will go to story time at the library. It is suppose to be for all ages, and the librarian had told me a lot of homeschool families come then, but we are always the oldest kids there. But, my kids don't mind at all, and they really seem to enjoy it. Yesterday's theme was snow, and they had a huge bucket of cottonballs that she let the kids throw. They had so much fun doing that!!! It made a huge mess of course, so I am glad it was there, and not at home! I looked up one time, and Rachel was laid out on the floor making snow angels!

These next 2 pics crack me up, the girls came to me and wanted me to throw a snowball at them, so this was their reaction while they were waiting on me to throw it at them.
Yes, I was taking a picture while I was throwing it at them!

Jump Zone/Pinnacle Mountain

We went to Pinnacle Mountain this last Friday for another homeschool day. It was not nearly as exciting as the other one we went to was. And again, I want to complain that I can see the Mountain so well from our house...and it takes me over 30 mins to get there!!!! They have a lot of programs I want to go to throughout the week, but I just can't bring myself to drive that far all the time. But, this last time we did discover the visitors center, and the kids really loved see all the stuff in there.

A pretty view from the visitor's center

The park there is their favorite thing
Our kids beg all the time to go to Jump Zone, but even though I can see it is So fun for them, it is more than I want to spend for 3 kids when it is SO BORING to me! This time I took a book along, and it was a lot more bearble for me. They asked all during Christmas break if we could go, so we finally took them last week.

My gift from Heather

Here is a picture of my wonderful goodies from Heather!! I think the kids were just as excited as I was about them since they have been scrapbooking with me!! Oh, and I really needed the adhesive tape...I have ran out of mine! Thank you Heather!! These swaps sure are fun!